MGoPodcast 9.Supplemental: Abdul El-Sayed
42 minutes
Wherein we interview Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed. This podcast is not and does not constitute an endorsement of the candidate. When a former Michigan athlete (lacrosse before it went varsity) is running for governor and reads the site and asks to come on the podcast we say "Okay, but we're not lobbing softballs".
Abdul did this whole interview without any notes and was very engaged in the toughest questions we could throw at him, so a lot of this interview went off anyone's idea of a script and got into some granular back-and-forth on complicated issues and events. That makes it hard to write up—what do you leave out?—so I'm going to present MGoBlog's questions below and you can get Abdul's answers by listening to the podcast.
Things discussed:
- Abdul's incredibly depressing Wikipedia page. How offering to serve got him thrown into a commission to run the Detroit Health Department after the emergency manager had shut it down. What did he do there?
- (at 7:30) Flint Water Crisis: What's the DEQ gotta do now? If the "money's there" where is it, how much will it cost? Could it have been faster? Will anyone believe them when they say the water's clean? What's Flint fatigue? How were the measurements made?
- (at 12:20) Lead Abatement Report: After Flint stuff his report on lead poisoning was changed? By whom? What level of lead is "safe"? How to operate a bureaucracy, setting culture of serving the public versus "closing the ticket."
- (at 18:20) Single-payer "MichCare" plan? How does it control costs, what's the upfront investment and transition costs, how does it compare to other plans? What are the incentives in the system and how do you change that?
- (at 23:20) Vis a vis recent Supreme Court decisions and a White House that would have substantially different views on, uh, civics: What is under the scope of a governor? Specifically would he as governor use state resources to support ICE and enforce federal immigration policy and political incarceration he doesn't agree with?
- (at 27:54) Brian's YIMBY hour: How do you address the relationship between housing and property assessments caught in an impossible Proposition A situation between rate of housing prices and rate of inflation? How do you decide the mils? How often do you do it? Note: on this question Abdul primarily addressed over-assessment that was leading to tax foreclosures in communities adjacent to gentrification, and education funding, while Brian was asking more about the Ann Arbor housing crisis (where nobody can sell their home). Brian recommends City Observatory dot org. Also SightLine.
- (at 35:31) Education: School of Choice effect on school districts in lower income communities. Promulgation of charter schools? Funding of charter schools?
- (at 37:30) Lightning Round: Regents for Michigan State: can we get two D's who didn't go to Michigan State? Ballot proposal to legalize marijuana? Ballot proposal against partisan redistricting? Plan to reduce the cost of a college education? Favorite Michigan athlete of the last 15 years?
MUSIC
"Across 110th Street"
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" Alexander Courage
THE USUAL LINKS
- Helpful iTunes subscribe link
- General podcast feed link
- Direct download link
- What's with the theme music?
Consider the gauntlet thrown down, sir.
Nah, Thanedar's numbers have always been really shallow. High name recognition due to his nonstop ads but also high disapproval. One poll released today has Whitmer up by 25 points with the other two tied, which is basically what you'd expect once people started paying attention.
STOP!! I come here solely to avoid the screaming stupidity. No politics should be a thing and this podcast should be sent to Bolivia.
I am putting my ad blocker back on. You guys are better than this.
Could you, by chance, not listen to the podcast? Does seeing a caption that says, "Hey we interviewed a gubernatorial candidate" constitute as screaming?
Based on the topic list I don't see any issues that are close to the top of my list at the state level. I didn't see anything on roads or the fact that we have 30 billion in unfunded pensions that have the potential to either hurt retired teachers or crowd out other programs. No discussion of line 5. Without discussion of those issues, I don't view it as an actual solution. Just more talk.
So it's not screaming then? Or it is screaming because it doesn't discuss the particular set of issues that you personally view as most important?
Screaming is my general assessment of politics at this point. I find Mgoblog to be a safe haven from politics and this is a disturbance of my safe haven. Admittedly I am quite grumpy about the current state of affairs. Is the use of the term screaming a bit over dramatic? Yes. But it reflects how I feel.
Yes - but check it out and give it a chance. There is very little partisan jabbing and it is very heavy on policy. It might not be your set of issues, but its interesting to see how Abdul thinks and what informs his policies. He's a pretty impressive guy and this interview is a very level-headed, fact-heavy discussion. Worth a listen. Or don't listen to it. But if you do, do so with an open mind.
Be patient, the screaming will come.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
So you can just skip the podcast, I guess? I mean, you can be punitive if you want, but that sure seems like an overreaction to something you didn't consume, cost you nothing more than the time you have now dedicated to complaining about twice, and won't adversely affect the main reason most of us visit the site.
I was in the room wrote the questions and wrote the order of the questions and the topic that I am most interested in got one sentence at the end. Brian cares a lot about prop a and the housing crisis, and Ace for obvious reasons cares a lot about Healthcare, and Abdul was the Detroit City Health Commissioner and a former medical professor, and a doctor and the Flint Water Crisis is I'm sure we agree a major issue for the state. We had very limited time went over by 15 minutes and could have spoken for hours without getting to all the issues in Michigan.
So, basically, you read each question to see if it interested you, and then decided - because they don't interest you - that the whole thing is trash. You would not have yelled "STOP!!!" if a question asked about unfunded pensions.
If it doesn't interest you, move along. Because when you digest the content before complaining about it, your complaint is void.
In addition, as someone who is close to the political center (its lonely here). I am fed up with the entire process and am cynical about everything.
If this podcast represents “screaming stupidity” to you, I shudder to think what you believe constitutes intelligence
Yeah, a calm long form interview with difficult questions and nuanced answers (like them or not).
Why can’t anyone sell their house in Ann Arbor? And please spare me the “because government is incompetent” trite.
Prop A limits property tax increases to the rate of inflation so when a city undergoes a big spike in home values existing owners are shielded from the consequences of the housing limitation policies they generally support. Tax burden shifts to newer residents.
Older ones considering moving closer to work or downsizing or what have you are strongly discouraged from doing so because selling your house and buying one of equivalent price would result in a 50% property tax hike.
This is not unlike the situation in Silicon Valley. California's longstanding Prop 13 (passed in 1978) limited property tax increases to 2% a year, quickly putting them well behind the rate of market value and, as a result of being inheritable, you've got people who are holding on to their houses bought in the 70s and refusing to sell or retiring/dying and passing it on to their kids (yes, they made it inheritable), because selling for many people means leaving California. Which, economically, they should do, but people dig living in California for a reason. So they don't cash in on the gold mine they found themselves living in.
So you have people who bought for $80,000 living with neighbors in virtually identical houses who paid $1,200,000 and the disparity in tax is often an order of magnitude or more. Apart from the sheer inequity of that scenario, it's completely distorts the local housing market by reducing the inventory and normal churn.
But I can drink the tap water with impunity here, so... you know. First world problemos. We all gonna die in the earthquake anyway.
NYC has a similar issue. Assessed value can't increase by more than 4% a year, so in neighborhoods that gentrified rapidly the taxes never kept up. Meanwhile in neighborhoods that gradually changed or just gained value as everything in NYC improved the taxes have been steadily increasing more in line with the market value. On top of that it tends to have a class and racial disparity with minorities or more blue collar people living in the areas with higher relative property taxes. A $4 million townhouse in Park Slope or, Williamsburg, or Fort Greene often has the same tax bill (about $10k) as a $1 million house out in Crown Heights or Sheepshead Bay.
You don't hear as much about it because NYC isn't facing the same housing shortage as AA or SF (more areas to gentrify, city actually allows lots of new construction) and most of the people who would write about it actually benefit from it.
The only real complaint I ever heard about housing stock in NYC was that they didn't have much in the way of "affordable" apartments being built. So they'd build two 800-unit high-rises in Williamsburg or Vinegar Hill and the get-in price (outside of studios) was like $500k+ for a 1-bedroom, and that just priced out families. What surprises me about Ann Arbor (and other places that aren't geographically limited like SF) is that larger-scale developments are so hard to get behind. I liked Ann Arbor when I was at school, but is there really a huge number of people trying to live there right now? Or is it more that a large number of people want to live in only certain parts of the city? I'm honestly wondering.
The money isn't there to build new affordable apartments, not where there is still demand for luxury and all development sites are priced based on the highest and best use. And even if the land and air rights were free, you are still working in one of the more expensive cities to build in. So you are looking at construction costs of at least $300 a foot, which then sells for $500 a foot. That means the cheapest apartment you could provide would be $500,000 for a 1,000 sq ft apartment which I wouldn't call affordable.
As Brian has mentioned before, they way to get more affordable housing is by just building more housing, even if it is luxury. Then you have the people who live in slightly worse housing move up, and the people below them move up and it carries on down the chain as everyone's housing quality improves.
Plus, the people living in pre-war buildings have it better anyway. Most new construction in Williamsburg and Vinegar Hill is crap quality and has constant water penetration issues along with thin walls and no sound proofing between floors.
Brian, but if you didnt have Prop A, then the existing homeowners would be assessed higher home values and asked to pay higher property tax. So if they couldn't afford to pay their higher property tax at a new location, they similarly wouldn't be able to afford the higher property tax reflective of their actual home value. So if anything, isn't Prop A allowing them to stay in the Ann Arbor area when they might not otherwise be able to afford it? Without it, wouldn't those homeowners be forced to leave the area completely oyherwise? Prop A isn't the problem (it's not trapping them, it's allowing them to stay), isn't it actually the higher property values, which result from market forces? Help me understand
Brian, but if you didnt have Prop A, then the existing homeowners would be assessed higher home values and asked to pay higher property tax. So if they couldn't afford to pay their higher property tax at a new location, they similarly wouldn't be able to afford the higher property tax reflective of their actual home value. So if anything, isn't Prop A allowing them to stay in the Ann Arbor area when they might not otherwise be able to afford it? Without it, wouldn't those homeowners be forced to leave the area completely oyherwise? Prop A isn't the problem (it's not trapping them, it's allowing them to stay), isn't it actually the higher property values, which result from market forces? Help me understand
It can be doing both. It's also keeping out other people who would want to live there and could afford the higher taxes.
This is going to come off as sounding harsher than I intend it to, but it's a delicate subject that isn't easy to discuss the nuance of in text. Do people have a right to stay in their home if the town raises property taxes above what they can afford? Is it the best for the community if an older couple lives in a 3 BR house, paying a lower effective tax rate and only using 1/2 of the house? What if the city decides it wants to do a major infrastructure project downtown to finally fix the terrible traffic, 70% of people vote to support it and raise taxes to fund it, should the old people fight the taxes so they can stay in their house and deny the 70% the infrastructure they want? And what about the young family that wants to benefit from the great schools in town and could easily afford the taxes, but can't find anyone to buy from because the houses are all being held onto.
I don't know what the best solution is, but the status quo doesn't seem to be that great. Maybe allow taxes to rise and give exemptions based on income to those who really can't afford it? Or allow more housing to be built to make up the lost tax revenue?
I agree that always seems like the give-and-take in these situations. You don't want to necessarily drive out the people who previously helped make the area nice, but you do have to counter that desire to "reward" longevity with the realities of getting fresh blood into the system. I've seen that in both New York and Boston, where you have 2 retirees living in 4+ bedroom, million-dollar homes because they don't necessarily want to move because it would be a "downgrade" and that home is a major part of their overall assets.
The state has a mechanism already in place that would take care of much of that. The Headlee amendment automatically rolls back millage rates when taxable value goes up faster than inflation.
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/what_is_the_headlee_amendment_and_how_does…
Removing the Prop A limit would be revenue neutral because of Headlee. It would no longer protect long-time homeowners from the consequences of local zoning, though. That would encourage booming areas to build more and maybe induce some long time residents to downsize, thus increasing the efficiency of existing housing. Something like a quarter of Seattle bedrooms in single family housing areas are empty because of empty nesters.
In Ann Arbor specifically the vast majority of the seniors who would see their taxes go up without Prop A have paid off their houses since they bought them before 1988 and could use that equity to stay in the house via a reverse mortgage or what-have-you.
"Market forces" driving up property values is only part of the story. More of it is areas with a lot of jobs not building enough housing.
I wish we had an option like him in Ontario :(
If I learn anything new and/or interesting I feel that’s a positive. That’s one reason I come back to this site - sports mostly, or otherwise. And I appreciate this interview, as it informed me on the specifics of some issues and some sides to those issues. I wouldn’t mind something like this on a weekly basis.
Why are some people being forced clockwork orange style to consume content? Is it a glitch in the new site?
If I still had any confidence in how to post a gif or embed a video, I'd be all over this with
[pic of Malcolm McDowell watching the film with his eyes forcibly propped open]
As long as they aren't playing Ludwig Van as the soundtrack, I have no objection. Ludwig Van never hurt nobody.
I come here to escape this talk, how disappointing.
Let's not forget that right now we are at the very bottom of the summer sports hole. So, I think we can forgive Brian for this borderline indiscretion. And, fortunately, when the country explodes into polarized hatred over the upcoming Supreme Court nomination, we will have our polarizing hatred for Ohio State to hold us together. Hopefully, Brian will be too busy fulfilling his life calling of producing UFRs to vent too much about politics during the season.
Here's a Democrat running for Governor. His father in law was president of CAIR. But don't say anything partisan.
Why not have an off-season exception for the occasional political discussions. Some of the best stuff I've seen on here over the years have been OT subjects, or subjects that relate to an athlete's off the field issues where some pretty bright people contribute interesting perspective to the conversation.
Or, in the alternative, have a forum for non-sport topics.
He has an endorsement from Shaun King. That’s all I need to know.
That's all I need to know, as well.
But I get the feeling I don't mean that the same way you do.
Lol. Who knows... either way.... love to you brother.
Same to you, friend!
Jeebus, dudes, get a room already.
The idea that one of two parties could encompass the complete or even majority of viewpoints of a single individual is absurd. If you identify as either, know that you have compromised your beliefs in order to conform.
Demonizing the other side as if they're feckless animals is repulsive. If you engage in this, know that your identity is not as a member of this party or that, but primarily a tribalist.
Thank you for copy-pasting a comment from deep within a thread at r/politics; we almost missed it!
Nothing is quite as useful in enacting real change as the person standing on the sideline telling both sides how dumb they both are.
Hell of a burn reply. Too bad what he said is completely true. Other multi-party democracies are perfectly functional.
I never said they weren't functional. But that's not the point he was trying to make. Any reasonable number of parties will lead to coalescing around a set number of beliefs that may, as he said, lead to compromised beliefs in order to conform to that party's platform. That's a truism as old as organized governance.
The other point he made was for people to stop "demonizing" the other side, which is a noble goal but also casts a lot of disagreements on policy as "demonization" depending on your viewpoint. Examples are unnecessary because I trust you can think of some policy you believe in that others will disagree with, perhaps passionately. They might say they are just supporting a strongly-held belief; you might counter they are needlessly inflaming your position with poor characterizations. You say it's a blue dress, I say it's gold. That shit.
I'm all for renewed attempts at open-minded discussions on topics of interest. But that comment simply restates un-actionable "truisms" about any political environment with a veneer of disengagement. Sorry if I'm not all that impressed.
Political threads are predisposed to repetitive opinions. I'm not offended that mine is not an original thought.
Based on your patrolling of this thread, I can gather you have much more experience espousing political views than I.
You remain exactly incorrect, however. There is nothing more damaging to real change than you two fools standing in the street shouting at one another. Soon you'll escalate that to true violence, and look around imploringly for someone to understand how terrible Party A is. But - and clever guy that you are, you probably see this coming - you'll look the same to them as the other guy. Depending on your choice - probably driven by your parents choice- the world either ended yesterday or 4 or 6 years ago. You were correct about how dumb this is. It's all really, really dumb. That has to be smashed before there can be any change. Because you're not getting your way, and you won't let them get there's. Blow them both up - figuratively - and start over. You can do this. You're not all right, neither are they.
My comment hit you pretty close to home. You should stop acting as if you're better than them. You're not, and if you can down for a moment, you will see that you known that.
I was honestly just bored on my commute home, and figured I'd check in one more time because I honestly found this podcast interesting. I seem to be in the minority on this, as most people posting here (yourself included is my guess) didn't actually consume it.
And I always find these threads particularly interesting because they are, to a person, filled with people complaining about how much they don't care about free content they can just skip over.
As for the rest of your comment, it's largely trivial, trite attempts at appearing above real political discourse. Which is fine and your prerogative; despite your comments to the contrary I think you are pretty experienced at voicing your political views. Maybe people not listening is your bigger problem.
But I will extend your analogy a bit. I may be one of the two people yelling in the middle of the street, but at least I'm trying to enact change with a set of beliefs that I feel will accomplish that goal. You're just the guy standing on the sidewalk worried that you might pick the "losing" side, so you walk away and hope that someone else does the dirty work and you just get to benefit from it. Which must be a nice way to go through life, if you can pull it off.
You are attempting little more than the advancement of your tribe, and you've been treading water at this for 20 years. I waa born on one side of the street, chose cross to the other, and now find them equally repulsive. You believe picking a side is necessary, which is your first problem, and you believe that choice will lead to a winner or loser, which is your second. You aren't winning anything. Nobody has for a long time now. Whatever you do will be undone and vice versa.
I prefer to listen to others as opposed to hope others will listen to me (which may be a frustration of yours projected on me). There are truths on the one side which you'd ignore because they're outside the billboard of your faith. I see no reason to limit myself that way. It's only obvious, really. And working with others who believe differently than you is a part of life. That's what peace requires. Allowing yourself to tribe is easy.
It seems like "trite" is a serious insult in your world, but again I don't mind the accusation. Working to help both sides understand the street is on fire and they are burning has value, even if it's not original. You only believe working together is trivial because either you've prized your tribe over peace, or your too jaded, or - perhaps most curious of all - it's just not original enough for you. Ironic then, that your approach to human conflict is to see that there are sides, align and conform yourself to one of those sides, set about demonizing the other, and arming for war. Because brother, there's nothing more trite than that.
I still don't quote understand what you are arguing for, but since you responded and this train is taking longer than expected, I'll give it one more crack.
Maybe this is another analogy, so I could be wrong, but it sounds like you were once identifying as, I guess, one party, switched to the other at some point, and became disillusioned when you realized it wasn't for you. And now you are distrustful of both and proclaim a need to listen to both from a position where you don't like either and find both of them to be mere tribal associations with little thought behind them of practical implications. Is that about right?
I've never said anything about not working with people who share different political views than myself. That's all on you, as is your constant attempts to glom on to me what are some rather obvious traumatic moments in your life where you felt people didn't want to work together (or more likely, not with you) to bring about some action you wanted. I get it; it sucks when you see people stuck in the morass of partisianship. And so in my small way, I've tried to address those issues by giving money and time to various charities and organizations on both sides of the aisle (e.g. ACLU, Catholic Charities) and volunteered at organizations that provide essentials to mothers and young children in need. Because the goal is always to bring about change that helps others, even on the micro level.
You also seem to think that calling political parties tribes is an insult, but a tribe is a community of people who look after each other and try to keep the whole as strong and healthy as possible. And when they run into other tribes, usually there is some level of harmony between them. It's not advantageous to fight all the time, and so you compromise to reach a manageable consensus, even if nobody gets everything they want. That was something you rejected in your initial comment, but whatever. So you say I'm part of a tribe, so be it. You seem, again, like the guy who sits just outside the tribes and just takes what he wants from them when it's convenient.
But we're talking past each other, so I doubt this matters. You think I'm a baying elitist who villifies those I don't agree with; I think you are a faux centrist who is afraid of putting in real work to enact change so you just tell everyone else they are bad so that you always have a talking point. Both are shitty and incorrect ways to viewing complex human beings and do nothing for the discourse, but it's the internet so...:shrug emoji:
That's a lot to unpack, and as a side note, you should stop with the constant "coolness aside, I'm only responding because I'm bored or the train delayed or the tea kettle has yet to boil" type comments; this is clearly very important to you, and that's OK.
I can't address all of that, but to be clear, I think you're a Democrat and you feel strongly about that, and when someone points out the obvious contradictions of partyism it challenges your political identity. You attack it as a trite position, then attack the individual as if they're weak for not "manning up" on one side or the other, neither pf which actually address the inaeity of the two party system. This is a weak form of debate, and since I know you're an intelligent man from your posts here, I conclude that you've chosen tribalism over reason. Many have, and it's the primary problem in our political world today.
I am anti-party first and foremost. Once this is disrupted, real change can follow. I have varied opinions that fall on both sides of the aisle, as you and and we all do. Once we get past the shouting most of the issues can be worked out. So I will work that until it occurs, which is my expression of reason.
Obama undid Bush, Trump Obama, and eventually someone will undo Trump. When that happens you'll think you're winning until the cycle repeats. But someday I hope to have my view breakthrough, and I think it will. Parties are dumb, they make rationale people irrational, as I believe this exchange - and nearly every other political discussion today - evinces.
If the parties turn you off then vote for whichever candidate you want. We don't have a parliamentary system in which voters essentially vote for the party instead of individuals. There's nothing stopping you from voting for candidates from varying parties across the ballot next election. If you like what the person has to say and he/she is qualified, vote for them.
And just because you have opinions that are all over the spectrum doesn't mean that the parties' platforms don't encompass a wide range of beliefs for most people. I have a number of varied opinions that are not in any party's orthodoxy but I identify strongly with one party. And that doesn't make me a tribalist. In fact, I frequently disagree with my party and I am not afraid to speak up about it (alternatively - not speaking up or putting up with behavior that is counter to my party's professed values, would in fact make me a tribalist). Political identity is a complex and nuanced thing. You should look closer.
I do vote for who I wish, of course.
The parties drive candidates, however, you know this, and as the division has grown larger and demonizing rhetoric more pronounced, the parties have retreated to their base. This has led to worse and worse options yelling banalaties (bronxblue would probably like that word) like "he supports tax breaks for the rich/corporations" and "she's soft on crime / take guns away". Of course politics has always had some level of this, but dual parties make it worse and tribal-acting dual parties make it much, much worse.
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